Contained

(edited by Bec Whitehead and Andy Bain-King)

We all have different ways of shielding ourselves from our biggest fears; the monsters that lie within us, that only we know. And we have our own secret weapons in this battle against cancer of the soul.

This is containment. This is what it is that contains you as an entity, that keeps your guts from spilling out to the floor, from going to the next level of emptiness.

Containment is not restrictive — there are no unwilling parties. There is no one keeping you somewhere you don’t want to be. This is security — wrapping yourself in something less daunting than eternity — or just tomorrow. The here and now can be a rough draft of a positive future. Images, memories, hope, letters from your best friend in primary school.

Sometimes your container is incomplete, or yet undiscovered. Your airtight tupperware number is missing its lid. You’ve tried everywhere and everyone. That warm, aching sickness is at the front of your stomach, as if the acid is eating through your abdomen. What saves you?

Do you go home? Home is somewhere, something, someone, that completes that invisible shell around your being. A space that brings a familiar feeling of capability, stability, safety.

Few of us know exactly what it is that keeps us alive and fewer still can describe it - even to themselves. Give in to it. We can all be defined by the way we deal with shit.

Some time in the future, you might be able to shut the lid and look at yourself from the outside, through the plastic. Until then, we are all made up of little incomplete barriers, little shields from hurt.

Home, space, shields from hurt: this is containment.

Please send all submissions to: Bec Whitehead (bec@cutlunchlit.com), or Andy Bain-King: (andy@cutlunchlit.com).

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